This invention relates generally to seats for vehicles and relates, more particularly, to the construction of a frame for a vehicle seat.
In a vehicle in which a shoulder belt is used in conjunction with a seat belt for spanning the torso of the occupant, one end, i.e. the upper end of the shoulder belt, is commonly attached to the body of the vehicle at a location adjacent the occupant's shoulder. By attaching the shoulder belt to the vehicle body, the vehicle body, rather than the seat or its frame, absorbs the loads to which the seat is exposed during a crash, i.e. a head-on crash, of the vehicle.
It would be desirable to attach the upper end of the shoulder belt to the frame of the seat at, for example, a location adjacent the occupant's shoulder, to render the shoulder belt more comfortable to the occupant and to facilitate the installation of the seat and the accompanying belts within a vehicle. However, loading tests to which vehicle seats are commonly subjected require that a frame of the seat be much stronger when a shoulder belt is attached to the seat frame than is the case when the shoulder belt is attached to the vehicle body. Heretofore, efforts to render the seat frame stronger have resulted in designs which are either too bulky, heavy or costly to be practical from a manufacturing standpoint.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved frame assembly for a vehicle seat to which the upper end of a shoulder belt can be secured.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such an assembly which is uncomplicated and relatively lightweight in construction and effective in operation.